393939want to cover it. I just expect at this point
in my career to make a record that I want
to make.”COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
Attaining this has been harder than one
might expect for someone who’s sold
well over 20 million albums. Other – as
its title suggests – addresses the manner
in which she’s always felt like she didn’t
belong. Born to a French father, whom
she describes fondly but bluntly as
“a complete and utter control freak”,
and an English mother, “who was a
quite oppressed woman”, she grew
up in what she describes as “quite a
violent environment”, and always found
communication intimidating, spending her
early years mentally translating French sofaithful to me, and very loving, and full
of goodwill, but right down to my very
fi rst experience in hospital as an eight-
year-old, waking up crying from a tonsil
operation and having the nurse put her
face next to mine and say ‘Why don’t you
shut your mouth?!’ These little things have
happened at such an alarming rate. Like
when I asked to audition for the school
musical, and the head of English said,
‘What would we want someone like you
for?’ All these things when I was young, I
felt, ‘Yeah, why would you want someone
like me?’ It didn’t even seem unreasonable
after a while. It just seemed like, ‘Yeah,
fair play. I know that I don’t fi t.’ And when
you’re younger, not fi tting in is crushing.”
She hesitates momentarily. “Actually, I’ve
now come to that place where I feel quite
blessed by it.”
Even once she was a star, her well-
documented weight problems drew
attention away from her music, and
she recalls an occasion when a French
journalist asked: “Don’t
you feel ashamed going
on stage looking the way
you do?” Perhaps it’s no
surprise, then, that she
withdrew from the public
eye. This was partially
due to disagreements
with her label, Sony,
following the release
of 1994’s Essex, but in
2014, on Desert Island
Discs, she revealed
she’d also suffered for many years from
agoraphobia, provoked by a painful
encounter with Elvis Costello when,as to be able to speak English. “Without
sounding crap,” she elaborates, “I have
always felt ‘other’. I came from a bit of a
peasant family, where
everything you had you
had to make. Before I
was in Yazoo I didn’t
even have a
cassette player.”
Moyet had other
reasons to feel different,
too. “Weird things
have happened in my
life that have made me
think about the fact I
have always for some
reason drawn unkindness,” she says,
albeit without a note of self-pity. “In latter
years, a lot of people have been veryLast year, Moyet joined a host of stars – including Dame Judi Dench, Benedict Cumberbatch and Dame Helen Mirren- to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. She took on the unlikely task of performing Sigh No More,
Ladies from Much Ado About Nothing, and among its greater challenges was singing the fi nal words of each verse: “Hey
nonny, nonny”.
“I really struggled!” she laughs. “It was funny, because they’d asked me to sing that song, and they sent over a
few versions that had been done. I thought, ‘I can’t go there!’ But at the same time, it’s really intriguing. I just said,
‘Actually, I can’t sing any of these melodies. Can I just write my own?’ And I had to do it in such a way that it lightly
buried the ‘nonny, nonny’. Words are so fucking tricksy!”
It’s not the fi rst time she’s tackled stage musicals. In 2001, she spent six months playing Mama Morton in Chicago
at London’s Adelphi Theatre. This was an unexpected turn of events, and not just for her audience. “I hated musicals,”
she confesses, “and I hadn’t done anything like that. Sometimes I determine to do things that frighten me. If something
appals you then it’s worth investigating.”
© Steve Gullick“WHEN YOU’RE
YOUNGER, NOT
FITTING IN IS
CRUSHING.
NOW I
FEEL QUITE
BLESSED BY IT”
ALISON MOYETwant to cover it. I just expect at this point
in my career to make a record that I want
to make.”COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
Attaining this has been harder than one
might expect for someone who’s sold
well over 20 million albums. Other
its title suggests – addresses the manner
in which she’s always felt like she didn’t
belong. Born to a French father, whom
she describes fondly but bluntly as
“a complete and utter control freak”,
and an English mother, “who was a
quite oppressed woman”, she grew
up in what she describes as “quite a
violent environment”, and always found
communication intimidating, spending her
early years mentally translating French sofaithful to me, and very loving, and full
of goodwill, but right down to my very
fi rst experience in hospital as an eight-
year-old, waking up crying from a tonsil
operation and having the nurse put her
face next to mine and say ‘Why don’t you
shut your mouth?!’ These little things have
happened at such an alarming rate. Like
when I asked to audition for the school
musical, and the head of English said,
‘What would we want someone like you
for?’ All these things when I was young, I
felt, ‘Yeah, why would you want someone
like me?’ It didn’t even seem unreasonable
after a while. It just seemed like, ‘Yeah,
fair play. I know that I don’t fi t.’ And when
you’re younger, not fi tting in is crushing.”
She hesitates momentarily. “Actually, I’ve
now come to that place where I feel quiteEven once she was a star, her well-
documented weight problems drew
attention away from her music, and
she recalls an occasion when a French
journalist asked: “Don’t
you feel ashamed goingCP30.Feat_AlisonM.print.indd 39 07/06/2017 16:48